Sleep Sage - a personalised intelligent sleep aid platform

睡眠对健康和幸福至关重要；然而，世界上三分之二的成年人每晚睡眠时间达不到建议的7-9小时。睡眠不足每年给英国经济造成400亿英镑（欧盟为2620亿美元）的生产力损失和缺工，并与肥胖、心脏病、糖尿病、癌症、抑郁和焦虑的风险增加密切相关。现在，它被宣布为一个“公共健康问题”，由于现代生活方式，包括心理社会压力、不平衡的饮食、缺乏锻炼、过度使用电子设备，预计这一问题将显著上升。全球睡眠辅助市场主要由药物解决方案、健身追踪器和睡眠/冥想应用程序主导，但这些应用程序的准确性和实用性有限，只能提供解决多因素问题的一般方法。在改善睡眠质量/数量方面，个性化解决方案显然没有得到满足。拟议中的项目旨在开发“睡眠圣人”——一个个性化的智能睡眠辅助平台，旨在帮助用户更容易入睡，更好地管理和理解他们的睡眠。Sleep Sage（包括智能耳机和一个复杂的软件平台）利用音频、传感器和人工智能共同形成一个“反馈回路”，可以测量音频的效果，并根据情况调整音频。提供可衡量的效益（更好和更多的睡眠）并产生重大的社会经济影响，例如改善健康和福祉，提高生活质量，减少与睡眠剥夺有关的代价高昂的健康并发症，以及提高生产力。到目前为止，工作主要集中在开发耳机和验证概念（作为MVP）与一个基本的软件平台，使用有限的可用音频内容。Kokoon的MVP产品已经获得了预售订单，并获得了分销商、零售商和电子商务的强烈市场兴趣，这使他们在将Sleep Sage商业化方面处于有利地位。概念验证已显示出积极的结果；然而，要成为一个完全可行的商业产品（超越现有耳机市场的竞争），现在至关重要的是，Kokoon在技术上提高了软件平台的功能和准确性，以确保大规模采用。该项目的重点是将平台推进到TRL7，并在用户试用中验证其性能，以帮助和支持快速采用。该项目将为Kokoon带来显著的出口导向型增长、可观的投资回报率、增加的就业机会和进一步的研发投资机会。

Sleep is critical for health and wellbeing; however, two thirds of adults worldwide achieve less than the recommended 7-9 hours' sleep a night. Sleep deprivation costs the UK economy £40billion/year ($262billion in EU) in lost productivity and work absence and is strongly linked to increased risk of obesity, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, depression and anxiety. It is now declared a 'public health problem', predicted to rise significantly due to modern lifestyles including psychosocial stress, unbalanced diet, lack of exercise, electronic devices overuse.The global sleep aids market is dominated by pharmaceutical solutions, fitness trackers and sleep/meditation apps however these are limited by accuracy, usefulness and only provide a general approach to a problem which is multi-factorial. There is a clear unmet need for a personalised solution that can generate measurable benefits in terms of improved quality/quantity of sleep.The proposed project seeks to develop 'Sleep Sage' -- a personalised intelligent sleep aid platform, designed to help users fall asleep easier and better manage and understand their sleep. Unlike competing solutions which monitor activity and present this information back to a user to make their own behavioural changes, Sleep Sage (comprising smart headphones and a sophisticated software platform) utilises audio, sensors and Artificial Intelligence which together form a 'feedback loop' where the effect of audio can be measured and the audio is adjusted in response, delivering measurable benefits (better and more sleep) and generating significant socio-economic impacts e.g. improving health and wellbeing, quality of life, reducing costly health complications related to sleep deprivation, and improving productivity.Work to date has focused on developing the headphones and validating the concept (as an MVP) with a basic software platform using limited available audio content. Kokoon have already generated pre-sales orders for their MVP product and have gained strong market interest from distributors, retailers and e-commerce -- placing them in a strong position to commercialise Sleep Sage. Proof of Concept has demonstrated positive results; however, to become a fully viable commercial offering (moving beyond competing in the established headphone market), it is now critical that Kokoon technically advance the functionality and accuracy of the software platform to ensure mass adoption. This project focuses on advancing the platform to TRL7, and validating its performance in a user trial, to aid and support rapid adoption.The project will deliver significant export led growth for Kokoon, a substantial ROI, increased employment and further opportunity for R&D investment.